“Wings Over Water: Migratory Land bird Flights Over the Western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico”

Steven E. Reinert

This talk will describe and contrast the wondrous flights of migratory landbirds over the Western Hemisphere’s largest water bodies. The focus will be on spring flights of migrant songbirds over the Gulf of Mexico, and on fall flights of immature songbirds over the Western Atlantic; and how these long-distance travelers survive their over-water journeys.

Steven Reinert has studied birds in Massachusetts and Rhode Island for over 35 years, and has authored several scientific papers, monographs, and book-chapters, on the region’s avifauna. His specialty areas are coastal- and estuarine-bird ecology, and land-bird migration. He received his bachelor of science degree in Zoology from the University of Rhode Island in 1975, and his Master’s in Wildlife Biology from URI in 1978. He has worked as an ornithologist for the University of Rhode Island and the Lloyd Center for Environmental Studies in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, has partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency on studies of salt-marsh sparrow ecology, and has served on the boards of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the Barrington Land Conservation Trust. He is a Master Bird-Bander, and has served as the volunteer data manager for the Block Island Banding Station since 1996.